


before sunrise makes us golden

by overcomewithlongingfora_girl



Series: girls, girls, girls! [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bodyguard, F/F, Hair Braiding, Longing, Morning Routine, Mutual Pining, Northern Water Tribe, Pining, Royalty, Unspoken things, Winter ATLA Femslash Week, a little angsty, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29179593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overcomewithlongingfora_girl/pseuds/overcomewithlongingfora_girl
Summary: Yue and Suki have a morning routine. Suki doesn't want to spend too much time thinking about what it means.(It means a lot.)
Relationships: Suki/Yue (Avatar)
Series: girls, girls, girls! [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904494
Comments: 15
Kudos: 27
Collections: Winter ATLA Femslash Week 2021





	before sunrise makes us golden

It’s still dark outside when Yue rises on near silent feet.

A better way of putting it, Suki muses, would be to say that it’s still early when Yue rises. After all, the North Pole is dark till noon this time of year, and when the sun does peek over the horizon, it’s only for a few hours. When Yue lifts the blanket up, inadvertently exposing Suki to the chilly bedroom air, that rare glimpse of sun is still five or six hours a day.

But a princess has duties. So does a warrior. There’s not much point in a bodyguard remaining in bed after the body she’s guarding is awake and moving. Though it’s irresistibly warm beneath the furs on Yue’s bed, Suki stretches her arms out long above her head, and swings her feet onto the floor.

Padding into the bathroom, Suki wraps her arms around the princess from behind, setting her chin on Yue’s shoulder and examining their faces, side by side, in the mirror. They’re close enough friends that she can do this, though there’s a funny, squirrely feeling as she does. Not wanting to think about that, Suki distracts herself and her princess with a funny face, and is rewarded with Yue’s soft chuckle, pitched appropriately low for the early hour.

Just a moment longer, Suki stares into the mirror, looking from one face to the other. She suspects Yue is doing the same, because the other teenager is statue still under Suki’s arms. Soon, Suki’s features will be invisible under a layer of paint, but for now she can compare their pointed chins and round cheeks, rosy from the winter air that pierces even the depths of the castle. The rosy circles are the only thing similar about them – Yue’s royal Northern looks are a far cry from Suki’s Earth Kingdom peasant heritage. They share their cold-pink cheeks, though, and the hint of a grin that tugs at the corners of their lips.

“Morning,” Yue says, her ice blue eyes meeting Suki’s brown in the mirror. Both of them are smiling.

“Good morning, princess,” Suki tells her, squeezing her around the middle to make her giggle. The quiet of the morning thus shattered, both of them break into laughter, Yue’s hands coming up to rest on top of Suki’s. She’s wearing a big fur-lined nightgown, which, like seemingly all of her clothes, is adorned with overly gigantic, swooping sleeves. Once, Suki asked her if she ever hid things in there, and from Yue’s tinkling, delighted laugh, it sounded as if she’d never thought of it. “Maybe I will now,” she’d told Suki, grinning.

Now it’s too early for those kinds of quick quips. Now Suki relents after a moment, releasing Yue back to her mirror so she can go on washing her face, brushing her teeth, dabbing iridescent powder on her lips. The makeup she wears is light, barely there, intended to hide small imperfections that Suki already can’t see. It’s important that Yue’s people recognize the features of their princess, see their line of kings in the regal shape of her nose, or the curve of her ice-pale eyebrow.

Suki, on the other hand, is tasked with obliterating herself, erasing every trace of individuality from her painted, whitened face. It doesn’t bother her, disappearing into the faceless ranks of the Kyoshi warriors. They’re sisters-in-arms and they are, at their core, a guarding force. Soldiers don’t need pretty or even recognizable faces; they need capable hands.

Besides, Suki thinks to herself privately. The people who count have ways of knowing which of the green-cloaked warriors is her.

Next to her, Yue has begun running a silver-handled brush through her curtains of waist-length hair. She’s gentle, careful, nothing like the way Suki jerks a comb, fast as possible, through her own cropped locks. Suki’s hair tends to puff out when she’s done combing it, perhaps because of the ferocity of her usual attack, but Yue’s lies flatter. It’s silver, sleek, perfect, almost glowing in the light of the whale fat candles burning on the ledge.

An intake of breath beside her. Suki can’t tell if it’s truly that quiet, or if she’s just that attuned to every move that Yue makes. It could easily be the latter. It’s her job to be attuned.

So attuned, that is, that she almost jumps out of her skin when Yue actually speaks.

“How’d you sleep?” the princess asks, eyes once again meeting Suki’s in the mirror.

“Very well, Your Highness,” Suki says through a widening smile, and there’s a hint of pink in Yue’s cheeks. They both know how they went to sleep last night – lying next to each other, hardly touching, in the same bed because weeks ago, servants had forgotten to bring another for Suki, and Yue wouldn’t dream of making her guest sleep on the floor.

Since then, there have been a hundred reasons not to bring in a bed for Suki. They can’t get a bedframe through the narrow door, and where would they put it, and Yue’s bed is big enough anyway, and twice as warm with twice the bodies. Another, quiet reason, one Yue will never tell her father – this morning, when they woke, Yue was curled around Suki like a pleased pet cat, the same way they’d woken every morning for weeks. Neither of them says a word to anyone about it, and neither of them mind. When Suki says she slept well, she’s telling the truth.

All too late, Suki remembers that Yue had asked her a question, and now it’s only polite to ask something in return. “What duties do you have today, Highness? Are you busy?”

Today is one of those rare days when they’ll be separate. Someone else from Suki’s entourage will be charged with Yue, while Suki trains and practices and learns new techniques for staying hidden out on the ice. Normally, Suki would be only too happy to learn new techniques in a new landscape, but at the thought of leaving Yue for an entire day, her heart unaccountably sinks.

She’s just taking her mission seriously, that’s all.

The princess sighs. She doesn’t sound very excited about her day either, and something about that makes Suki smile privately to herself. “More negotiations with the Southern Tribe. More negotiations with the Fire Nation. More negotiations with the Earth Kingdom.”

“All three?” Suki’s brow furrows. She wasn’t aware there were any Fire Nation representatives currently stationed in the North Pole, and though they’re supposed to be at peace now, that oversight doesn’t reflect well on her preparation skills. 

“Well…no,” Yue admits, with an apologetic little grin tugging at the edge of her lip. “I suppose it just feels that way. Just…so many diplomats. It seems never ending. Everyone wants something for nothing, and no one is willing to give anything at all.”

In the mirror, Suki makes an apologetic face. “I’m sorry, Princess Yue. Diplomacy sounds…unbearable.”

The princess sighs, and then smooths the wrinkle in her brow into a familiar, peaceful expression. It’s a good princess skill, being able to mask all emotions back to calm. Suki hates it. “There are worse things,” Yue tells Suki lightly, resting her brush back on the counter in front of her. “I’m sure I wouldn’t last a day in your robes.”

Suki allows herself a smile at that – the thought of the delicate, refined princess, tumbling in a sweaty training ring with Suki and her warriors. Just the thought makes her blood race. “Given some practice, I know you’d do just fine.”

“Really?”

Princess Yue sounds skeptical, but Suki nods firmly. “Let me give you a few lessons, sometime. Basic hand-to-hand, maybe a few moves with a fan. You never know when it could come in handy.” Her heart flutters in her chest as she waits for Yue’s reply.

The princess mulls it over. “I don’t see why not.”

Nudging her in the side, Suki meets Yue’s eyes once more in the mirror, her own now lined in red. “Maybe it’ll even come in useful in one of those endless meetings.” Yue’s nose wrinkles as she giggles. “One of the ambassadors tries to pull a fast one and you-” Suki taps Yue, right in the middle of the chest, to demonstrate, “-take them out.”

Yue’s laughing at the thought, and Suki leans back on her heels, pleased with herself. “As long as it isn’t Sokka,” Yue says finally, when she’s recovered, eyes still dancing merrily. Suki rolls her eyes at the thought of the young Water Tribe ambassador.

“Maybe it _should_ be Sokka.”

“Suki!” Yue’s voice is reproving. “He’s so _nice_.”

“Princess, you only met him after I’d already gotten to him.”

Yue rolls her eyes. “Well, I suppose I’m indebted to you for that.”

“Oh, Highness, you most definitely are.” Yue snickers at that, and it’s such a rare sound that Suki just wants it to go on _longer._ Too bad Yue has too much self-control for that.

For a moment, there’s quiet between them as Suki paints her lips. The bathroom is cramped, but they share the mirror and the space easily, naturally, as if they’ve been doing it for years and not weeks. The few candles in the room make their faces into pale moons in the dim bathroom. Yue’s hair becomes silvery rivers down her shoulders, down her back.

When Suki is done coloring her lips, Yue turns to meet her eyes directly, no longer letting the mirror reflect her gaze. “Ready?”

Suki has started to wonder if the princess finishes her own routine long before Suki, and she just waits there in the bathroom so the two can stand together. There’s no way to be sure. And the princess has a lot of hair to brush and tend, after all. Maybe Suki is imagining things.

Suki really doesn’t think so.

Together, the two step out of the bathroom, and Yue makes her way to the desk in the corner of the room, Suki trailing after. Yue sits delicately on the cushion and with one practiced movement, flips her whole head of hair over the back of the chair in a long, shining flat curtain. Stationing herself behind the chair, Suki reaches forward.

Beneath her fingers, Yue’s hair is smooth, shining, perfect. With accomplished ease, Suki weaves thick braids down the sides of Yue’s face, first the left, and then the right. They don’t talk, while she does this, just sit quietly, each lost in their own mysterious thoughts. Probably Yue is getting ready for the day, listing out the dignitaries she’ll have to recognize and the issues she’ll have to resolve. Were she as dedicated a bodyguard as she should be, Suki would be thinking about which parts of her training could use a brush up, and how best to spend her time.

Instead, Suki takes the opportunity to gaze into the side of Yue’s face, wondering what she’s thinking. Her fingers fly all on their own, no supervision needed after years of braiding hair, both her own and others. Yue must know that Suki is watching her, but she never acknowledges it, or turns to make eye contact. Maybe she’s too lost in thought, and maybe she’s afraid to meet Suki’s eyes. The air in the room is thick with something – tension? Expectation? Suki’s throat is dry, but she thinks if she cleared it, something would crack, so she stays quiet and calm and moving quickly, fluidly, weaving Yue’s white hair into braids.

When she’s done, there’s a brief, ridiculous sense of loss. Her favorite part of the morning, done. She steps back, lets the second braid fall into place on the side of Yue’s head. There’s still a long sheet of hair down the back of Yue’s head, but that, she’ll twist up herself in some elaborate loops that Suki was never taught, still can’t get the hang of.

But their morning isn’t over yet. Yue stands and moves from the chair, nodding for Suki to take her place. Suki does, even though she hardly needs to sit for this next part. Now, with careful fingers, Yue takes a few strands of hair from the side of Suki’s face, and weaves her own braids, tiny, hardly noticeable, on either side of Suki’s eyes.

There’s no mirror here, at this desk, which was originally intended for writing. If there was, Suki imagines looking into it to see the matching hair on such different heads, such different faces. Suki won’t flip the rest of her locks into the elaborate hair-headdress that Yue will, but both of them will have these little reminders of each other’s work, hanging just outside their vision all day long.

It hadn’t started this way. It had been almost two weeks before Suki had laid hands on the princess’s hair. After so many days of watching Yue tame her long locks on her own, Suki had offered, pretending it was nothing, a throwaway comment, while all the while her heart sat like a lump in her throat.

When she’d first touched Yue’s hair she’d hardly been breathing. When she’d let the second braid slide into place along Yue’s cheek, she’d been afraid the princess would reject her work, find some fault with her perfectly average job. Instead, the princess had instructed Suki to take her place, and had repeated her work in a fraction of the time – an easy feat, because Suki’s own hair barely reached past her chin.

No other Kyoshi warriors wore braids, and Yue had to know that. There was no official code for hair, just that it should not interfere with fighting, and should preferably be kept short, so as not to waste time caring for it on long engagements. Before Yue, Suki hadn’t done anything with it at all, preferring to leave it loose so as not to give an attacker an easy handhold.

But Yue had bade her into the chair gently, and Suki had sat as if she had expected this, and when Yue finished the braids, thin and perfect and hardly noticeable, Suki had thanked her. Yue nodded, as if it was expected, as if this were some casual transaction they’d agreed upon, when really, the girls had hardly spoken. Since that day, Suki had braided Yue’s hair, and worn Yue’s braids alongside her own face. Lately she finds herself distracted by them, reaching up to touch them throughout the day. It’s dangerous, indulging in a persistent daydream like that. It’s exactly the kind of thing Suki has been warned against. Training dictates she stop immediately, take measure to ensure that her vigilance and dedication are still up to par.

Instead of rejecting it, Suki nurtures this distraction, strokes it, looks forward to it, wastes time thinking of it. Instead of cutting off her braids, Suki tugs at them, twists them around her finger, wonders if Yue ever feels the weight of the braids on her own head and thinks of her.


End file.
